20th Annual U.S. Symposium
November 6-8, 2008
Irvine, California
Sessions:
- Cryptography and Computer Security
- Ever Closer to Pandora’s Box: Zoonotic Transmission of Viruses to Humans
- Extrasolar Planets
- Food and Fuel
- Multiple Systems in Understanding Addiction
- Quantum Gravity
- Suspended Animation, Immortality, Regeneration
- The Expanding Frontier of Nucleic Acids Chemistry and Biology
Cryptography and Computer Security
Organizer: Chris Jermaine, University of Florida
Chair: 
Cryptography and Computer Security
Anna Lysyanskaya, Brown University
Speakers:Adventures in Electronic Voting Research
Dan Wallach, Rice University
Functional Encryption: Beyond Public Key Cryptography
Brent Waters, SRI International
Ever Closer to Pandora’s Box: Zoonotic Transmission of Viruses to Humans
Organizer: Vanessa Sperandio, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Chair: The Evolution of Viral Emergence
Eddie C. Holmes, Pennsylvania State University
Speakers:Making and Breaking Viral Pandemics: an Evolutionary Perspective
Michael Worobey, University of Arizona
Receptors, Entry Proteins and Zoonosis
Michael Farzan, Harvard University
Extrasolar Planets
Organizer: Karen Meech, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Chair: Extrasolar Planets
Victoria Meadows, University of Washington
Speakers:Now That We've Found Them: Characterizing Planets Around Other Stars
Jonathan Fortney, University of California, Santa Cruz
Photosynthesis and Astrobiology: Color Limits for Life Adapted to Others Stars and Atmospheres
Nancy Kiang, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Food and Fuel
Organizer: Hallie Eakin, University of California, Santa Barbara
Chair:
Food and Fuel
Francesco Tubiello, Columbia University
Speakers:The Biofuels Boom: Promise or Peril for Tropical Forests?
Holly K. Gibbs, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Frontiers of Biofuel Science
Anthony F. Michaels, Proteus Environmental Technologies
Multiple Systems in Understanding Addiction
Organizers: Andy Dillin, Salk Institute for Biological Sciences and Wynne Schiffer, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Chair: Multiple Systems in Understanding Addiction
Michael A. Nader, Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Speakers:GPCR Trafficking and Responsiveness to Drugs of Abuse
Jennifer Whistler, University of California, San Francisco
Substance Abuse and Reinforcement Learning
Paul E. M. Phillips, University of Washington
Understanding Addiction: Animal Models of Cocaine Abuse using Brain Imaging and Primate Social Behavior
Michael A. Nader, Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Quantum Gravity
Organizer: Mark Trodden, Syracuse University
Chair: Quantum Gravity
Donald Marolf, University of California, Santa Barbara
Speakers:Light from the Early Universe and Quantum Effects in Gravity
Eva Silverstein, Stanford University
An Invitation to Quantum Gravity
Laurent Freidel, Perimeter Institute
Suspended Animation, Immortality, Regeneration
Organizer: Andy Dillin, Salk Institute for Biological Sciences
Chair: Suspended Animation, Immortality and Regeneration
Alejandro Sanchez, University of Utah
Speakers:Germ Cell Immortality in C. elegans
Shawn Ahmed, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Mechanisms Regulating Suspended Animation in Caenorhabditis elegans
Pamela Padilla, University of North Texas
The Expanding Frontier of Nucleic Acids Chemistry and Biology
Organizer: Scott Silverman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Chair:
RNA Shapeshifters
Donald H. Burke-Agüero, University of Missouri School of Medicine
Speakers:Structural Insights into Metabolite-Sensing mRNAs
Robert Batey, University of Colorado at Boulder
Reprogramming Bacteria with Small Molecules and RNA
Justin Gallivan, Emory University
